Thunar: Width of file name column

Could be a noob issue, but the "Name" column of my Thunar file manager always opens up two feet wide. (On Ubuntu Studio 14.10.) This means far outside the window so that no other columns are visible without horizontal scrolling. I almost always need a few of the others too.

One would wish Thunar could adapt itself to the actual file name lengths. Or, barring that, a much narrower default column width, 5 inches, say.

I might have missed something basic, certainly willing to be educated, thanks.

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

That's odd; my filename column is only about ½" (~13mm?) wider than my index finger. I have a total of four columns (filename, size, type, and date modified) and they all fit within the boundaries of the screen.

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

namgang wrote:

One would wish Thunar could adapt itself to the actual file name lengths.

Usually it does - and that might be the problem here. When I open long lists of files/folders there's sometimes one or another among them of excessive lenght. That causes thunar to expand the name column to the edge of my screen which is annoying (especially when I use window tiling and 2 thunar windows next to each other).

So I unticked "automatically expand colums as needed" in view-->configure columns and got rid of that problem. Maybe that's what you're looking for?

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

This has been annoying me for a long time too - I have to adjust the filename width every time. None of the collumn widths are restored. Wondering if it's a settings issue with a long-time installation?

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

Sorry to open up that thread again but the problem still consists (on Xubuntu 16.04 and 17.10) and I've found a way to trigger it:

)Start thunar (v1.6.12))Set column width to your needs)Restart thunar and it will remember the column width like expected)Now insert a USB stick and let automount do it's job)When the stick has been mounted, a new thunar window will pop up with a well expanded filename column (although "automatically expand columns as needed" is disabled)

What makes it extremely annoying is the fact that with a filename column that wide I'm unable to select multiple files/folders by drag&dropping a frame over the files/folders intented for selection.

A few years ago this selection mode has been disabled (which was a bad decision IMHO) for the filename column and is only available for all the other columns which forces me to horizontally scroll and/or use the keyboard for selection (drawing the selection frame has to be started from the file-size or file-type column). Is there a way to enable the old selection behaviour again?

Re: Thunar: Width of file name column

Wow - my thunar version is quite outdated eventhough I'm using a bleeding-edge Ubuntu version. According to the xfce git the thunar devs were really busy since 1.6.12 which makes me want to try newer versions. Only I first have to look into compiling my own version which I've never done before. So this could take some time.